


Future Storm

by lacewing



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: I will add in tags as I need them, Kidnapping, Multi, Mystery, Police, Racism, Seriously its everyone and everything in this AU mad house, seriously slow burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-15 16:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacewing/pseuds/lacewing
Summary: In a world where string theory takes an interesting turn when combined with magic, all of the various undergrounds, called Clans, are living above ground and trying to settle into new lives while having to deal with copies of themselves as well as the usual sort of fight for rights and against racism.Fell Clan's Sans goes missing, and his brother is left to find him.





	1. Prolog

**Author's Note:**

> A new story, yet another new story. This one based about some RPs I did awhile back with a couple other people. After we ended up stop playing I missed the characters and some of the story elements. (Some of it got silly and power creep was definitely a thing...) I decided to sit down and start reworking the rp into a better story format and well some characters got cut, (in one case I've cut and entire AU) some appear and my love of world building comes to the foreground. anyway, have a couple more chapters I can add to this and we'll see if its liked or not.   
> Seriously, I currently have 4 books laid out off this thing, this was a pretty epic RP I loosely based this around.

Future Storm - Prolog

 

Sans mentally flipped the bird to the store he worked for as he got on his jacket. It had been a rough night. Half the order didn’t come in until near morning and it was a mad scramble to get everything on the shelves before the boss arrived when they opened their doors near six.

He fucking hated this place, but well, it was the only place he found that would hire a Fell Clan monster. Got word about the place from the burger cat asshole who was working as a bagger there. He recommended it as being a least better than Mettaton.

So, he tried it out. It was better than competing for space for a hotdog stand from some of the other clan sanses around town. The Boss was a bit of a prick, but not anything worse than he was already use to and he got regular hours. No constantly shifting up his shifts or his days off. Sans had to admit that for a minimum wage job it was better than some places he could have ended up with.

Right, Red, he was supposed to be thinking of himself as ‘Red’ so that they didn’t get confused with the other clans.

Fuck that, Sans was Sans and screw the pansy blue boy from Core Clan who was keeping the name. Sure, he put it down as a middle name on the paperwork, it was better than writing out ‘Fell’ and the bullshit baggage that came with that.

Just cause his version of the underground was rougher than some of those other pansies, didn’t mean his clan didn’t deserve being up here.

Hell, least the Kid still believed in him.

Cause sometimes, it felt like even his own brother didn’t believe in him anymore.

His bony hand rested on the door of the locker, as he rested his forehead against the edge before closing it. He was just, tired. Tired of all the shit and just near giving up. Too many clans. Far as any of the science types figured it seemed to do with the excess magic once the barrier closed.

It sort of caused a kind of quantum fluctuation that frankly shouldn’t have been possible, but when the science of the world mixed with the magic of monster, weird things where bound to happen at some point.

So, every pathway that could have happened, did. Some of them took different routes to try and survive, some had food shortages, some figured out ways to have abundance.

Hell, one clan wrote themselves a fucking BOOK out of the underground! Some even somehow expanded their boarders until it resembled space itself.

His? Yeah, their king decided to turn asshole and destroyed everything to make a few stronger. So that when they got out they could restart the war they lost once already.

Heh, when the Kid showed up… well, any hope the old goatfuck thought of having a war went out the window. Sans had already been thinking that it was a worthless cause anyway, a few visits to the garbage dump had showed him some ideas of what the surface was like, and well the Kid verified it.

The humans where in the billions, what could a few thousand monsters do? The Humans had weapons that even the strongest magic likely wouldn’t have been able to do much about. Not since the Old Man disappeared and Alphys went nuts.

Coat in place he was thinking of breakfast, he was meeting up with the Kid today, his clan’s savior, Frisk, and have breakfast. Down at the Waffle House, then he looked forward to a day of sleep until Paps got home from his own job and woke him up.

A bit of hanging out, eat dinner while his brother ragged on him about how he could be doing something better with his life, and go back to work. Repeat until he got a day or two off, do a bit of research and just... coast.

Pretty much all he’d been doing with his life for now was coasting. He used to be someone. A scientist for a while, then after his brother went for the Royal Guard he was selected as the new Judge.

When they first got to the surface he had such hope.

The world was fresh, new, they had a chance to maybe soften themselves again. To not have to live by the kill or be killed rules. That sure, there was likely going to be a few rough patches for them, but hey maybe they would have managed to survive and everyone would have a chance.

Fucking HA. When they came up they found that they were not the first, nor only, underground to make it to the surface.

And instead of making things easier, it made it harder. Their ‘clan’ as they were dubbed where dangerous and hell even those assholes with the ‘Core Clan’ looked down upon them. Kicking Fell to the ghetto meant that the ‘nice’ clans could live with more acceptance among the humans. Sure, monsters had ‘rights’ but no one had to hire them, or shit, no one had to care. They just got treated with suspicion and put on the same level as certain minorities and humans of color.

Least they had their Asgore fighting for them, which was weird to say since below ground the only thing the old asshole fought for was his own fucking skin. But hey, maybe they all changed, as it was Asgore went into politics, he was making sure the humans didn’t keep trying to sneak through laws either on the state or country level that took away monster rights.

The humans were great about justifying their bullshit laws. Their favorite angle to use was the ‘hey we aren’t’ talking about you guys, you are cool’ to the clans like Core, ‘Nooo! This is all about _those clans_.’ Meaning of course ones like Fell, who were just surviving, or the hermits Tomb who were scary (just what sort of fuckery did those guys face to warp them so much?) but decent enough. Hell, their saviors were a pair of twin 6-year olds. Frisk and Chara, the kids didn’t talk much, and clung to their Sans like little burs. (Fuck he was huge, almost made Sans jealous how big Chomper was. Sans got the ‘short’ end out of the sanses, but hey. Least he was biggest where it counted with the ladies!) Or like Lust who opened a bloody redlight district out of the neighborhood they took over. Then there was the swapfells who decided if they were going to be treated like criminals already might as well go all the way and ran huge gangs and drug trafficking rings. Of course, the Mafia, fuck those guys had the right idea far as Sans was concerned. They came out of the underground, looked around and promptly banded together and got their hands into as many pots as they could fucking reach. One of the newest clans out and within the couple years or so that bunch was already making waves.

Sans really had to get out of his own head. He sighed, “Waffles, getting fucking waffles, with loads of syrup, unless that one waitress is on staff again then I’m drowning it in mustard, see what face I can make that bitch make. Look down on me will she? Stupid cunt.” he chuckled darkly to himself as he locked his locker and headed for the exit. He waved to a couple of other employees. The night crew weren’t too bad. They had the Munchkin, the human who was barely taller than him (and at 5’1” that was saying something) always full of smiles and talk about her million cats. (ok, she only had 4, but the way she talked about them Sans wondered if there were more tucked away somewhere) then there was Slim Jim, the youngest, a sort of punk ascetic kid with raven dyed hair spiked to one side and enough metal in his face to make a TSA agent weep. There were a couple other guys, but none of them managed to stick too long in Sans’ memory for him to tag them with a nickname yet.

Ok, might be a little hypocritical of him to resent being called Red, when he was giving out nicknames left and right, but then… He wasn’t trying to force these people to accept it as their own legal name either. Like, couldn’t he have gotten a real name? There were a million fonts in the world he could have picked something from there instead! Or hell, people just put up that he’s also called Sans, rather like how two humans can be named Robert and you still know who’s who. Weren’t there like a baker’s dozen worth of Chrisses in the movies right now?

He exited out the back of the store and squinted as the sun was up high enough to make the transition from inside to outside a bit of a sharp stab on his sockets. Blinking a bit to focus, he headed for the end of the ally between the small grocery he worked for and the brush behind the strip mall the building was in. He had himself a small moped scooter he puttered about on. Yeah he had a better Harley Davidson back home, but this got him to and from work and he didn’t worry about anyone trying to fuck with the paint job or run off with it.

Just as his vision cleared and he was fishing about his pocket for his keys. A large dark van suddenly stopped in front of him.

“What the fuck, hey! Common, move it assholes” he started and didn’t think there was trouble until the door opened.

Maybe if he been more with it he would have thought to teleport or least summon a blaster or something, instead there was a bag over his head and something hit him hard enough to see stars then… nothing.

 


	2. chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detective Helen Silva has taken on a new job. Along with Officer Papyrus Edge Font of the Fell Clan, they are on the hunt for a missing person.  
> Officer Font's Brother, Sans Red Font.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this tomorrow, even looked to see if it would sort of ques it up for me since I can set the date for the future as well, but unfortunately doesn't look to be the case, too bad! that would be so handy when I go on vacation in July.

Future Storm – chapter 1

 

Detective Helen Silva flopped her head down onto her keyboard and groaned.

She should have had cases to work on, things to do, instead since she started in this office she was a glorified filing clerk for every lazy asshat that didn’t want to finish his own paperwork.

The errors, oh the glaring errors. She had to check the physical write ups against the computer files, make sure it wasn’t filled to the teeth with inconsistencies (nothing worse than losing a case in court because some idiot didn’t do his write ups correctly) and then get the files down to filing.

As well as working on her own caseloads. Missing persons, mostly. The bigger cases went to the guys with seniority over her. Detectives who been here for years got the murders and other investigations. She spent her time calling morgues for bodies, filling out reports of what the forensic teams found, and sending that up to the higher ups so they could possibly get a warrant to hunt up further information and solve one of the dozen or so active cases on her desk.

It was long work, it was tedious work, and she didn't even get the breaks that came with talking to witnesses or going out to investigate a crime scene. That was someone else’s job.

Helen wondered yet again how she ended up here instead of in a uniform and giving out speeding tickets. She took the same classes, yeah, she was a bit ahead as she was former military, but she was part of the airforce. It wasn’t like she was that overly fit or whatever.

Least, unless she was on call, she got weekends off. That was nice.

If only being a detective was like on the crime shows she use to watch growing up. Real police work, no matter what position you were in, was 90% paperwork and complete lack of sleep as the hours where long and the staffing always in need of new bodies.

She survived off coffee and subway.

“Human?” Shit, it was the monster officer who worked a few desks away from her. He and another from his clan, Fell wasn’t it? Recently joined the force. There were a couple other monsters about. One a rookie officer so shiny he squeaked from the Core clan and another guy who was one of the janitorial staff. She heard word that they were going to likely be hiring some more monsters, something about the city and state wanting a more inclusionary force.

She didn’t really care one way or another. It didn’t affect her job much in the end. But she could see where it would be useful, especially with the growing pile of monster cases, having a monster on hand to help even just make everyone feel a little better. Someone they could hopefully trust to open up to. She’d been hearing stories around the breakroom about some of the monster clans.

How closed off they tended to be, how they didn’t trust humans. Hell, she was human herself and she didn’t trust other humans, so Helen didn’t blame the monsters one bit in that regard.

She looked up and saw the frowning sharped tooth grimace of her fellow officer. His red pinpricks glaring down at her.

“Yes, Officer Font?” she asked him, what was his first name? She knew the janitor who looked like him got called Honey, and the other rookie was called Papyrus, wait... Edge. Yeah that was right.

Weird names, one was a condiment, another a font and the third well, he looked as spikey as his name frankly.

How did a skeleton frown?

“Yes, you’re a Detective, aren’t you?”

She looked to her little plaque on the desk. Detective Helen Silva.

His eyes followed hers and his frowned deepened. “Look, yesterday my brother didn’t come home. I thought at first he might have just found some cheap whore to fuck, but he hasn’t shown up and I got a call this morning that he did not show up for work last night.”

“Have you filed a missing person? I mean, you are an officer.” She pointed out.

“Yes, but other than Undy- er Ryu, I can’t get many of the other officers to move their asses.”

“Yeah, missing kids will get people motivated,” but his brother wasn’t a kid, and he was a Fell monster.

Ok, she could see the issue. She’d been hearing even among the force those that thought clans like the Swapfells and Fells should never have come to the surface.

Hell, not their fault that their worlds went to pots. Food shortages, bad choices, a lot of things factored into what sort of underground each one got. She really didn’t get all the weird math behind it, it looked like shit from an episode of Star Trek to her, but she least understood the idea. They were all the same person, just what they would end up like if something different happened. Like the whole many world’s theory, but in their case, because of the locked up nature of their timelines, once one broke open, others broke open and they just all poured out into the same world, because they all were the same universe.

If that didn’t give someone a headache, she didn’t know what would.

“Right, well, if you want me to, I can see if I can put in to get this case and start asking questions with you. Have you interviewed his job? Find out who saw him last? Checked out the last known location for any clues?”

She saw that the more she talked, the more the skeleton before her shoulder’s relaxed and his spine straightened. Like he’d been afraid she would blow him off too.

Hey, this was his brother. If it had been her brother, she wouldn’t be trying to find anyone to help her, she’d be out there and over her walkey telling them to get their asses in gear.

But then, her brother was still just a little kid, his was an adult. Which meant there should be a 24 hour wait period, but if he was missing since yesterday morning, then it had been 24 hours already. Also he was a Fell clan, and even if his brother was a cop, there was enough bad blood and overworked cops that well, yeah, even the precinct was a fucking highschool at times.

Time, though, was of the essence; every hour they wasted lessened the chance of finding a living person and increased the chances they were looking for a body, or dust in a monster’s case.

Well, that would be a headache, a handful of dust would just result in a bit of vacuuming and no evidence left. She could already see the ways this could go very bad and not end happy in any way shape or form.

Shit, Edge really shouldn’t be working this case at all, he was too close to it, but with the creepy racist fuck they had as a Sargent, she didn’t see him being pulled from it.

Technically, with an officer assigned to the case, it just meant everyone else could take a back seat and do other things for a while. Sure, it’ll get done by the book eventually, just slow as molasses running off the side of a Antarctic glacier.

Helen was tired of being a desk cop. She had signed up for this to keep feeling like she was doing something after she came back from that last near failed mission. Several years of intense therapy and dumped off without even a bloody medal to show for it, she was ‘honorably discharged’ so they didn’t have to bother with her anymore.

In the end, Helen had been left with two choices: to curl up and die; disappear and never be seen from again, or… Do something.

She never was a girl to do nothing when there was something to be done. So, she got off her ass, and looking around for something an ex-pilot who couldn’t fly anymore could do, she decided to go into the police force.

Training, classes, and bullshit later she was given a badge and a job. One that put her behind a desk and doing absolutely nothing.

Sure, she made detective, and earned the ire of those who likely been working years to get detective before she came around. But she wasn’t part of one of the better funded departments, and the rest of her section just shoved her at a desk and had her doing all the paperwork so they could go home while she was stuck working overtime and not being fucking paid for it.

If she complained, then the Sargent would use that as an excuse to demote her to meter maid, likely. If he didn’t use it as an excuse to just fully kick her from the force entirely. Since she was female, a woman of color, and ex-military. The guy seriously had some issues.

Hell, her choosing to help with a missing person’s case could get her in trouble, she wasn’t assigned this case, but if she did nothing, who would? There was someone out there, who was lost, who was possibly dead, who never would have justice, and had a brother who cared for him. Cared enough to ask everyone, even her, a bogus secretary disguised as a detective.

 She went and got the paperwork, a few pre-signed forms that where kept for emergencies when the Sargent was off duty, filling it out, and hand walking it down to the files to put herself on this case.

Hopefully by the time the Sargent figured out what she had done, the case would be far enough along that Officer Font could handle himself, or at least, they would have a body.

She had little hope that there would be anything but a body. Better luck would be that he had just been out on a prolonged bit of fun and would be showing up at home soon. Worse case? He was dust in the wind.

She rather hoped for the best case really.

“Let’s go figure out who last saw your brother.” She said as she got her coat and keys.

\---

“Why we didn’t just take the squad car.” Helen grumped behind the wheel as her current ‘partner’ complained non-stop about her car.

OK, yes, it was a piece of junk, but she had this thing since highschool, it was a classic!

One of the few small cars that Mercedes produced, a little two door coup. With a lot of dents, a crack in the back window she hadn’t gotten a chance to get to repairing and missing three of the four hubcaps. The sort of olive green paint job was punctuated with other colors and patches over the years, most had been there when she bought the car off some old guy’s lawn. It had taken her and her dad some work just to fix the engine enough to get it running, but the frame was in great shape and for something from the 80’s it got decent gas mileage.

She could see Officer Font’s distaste of it the moment they got close enough that he realized which car had been Helen’s.

Ok, well it was small enough that his tall lanky frame looked a little ridiculous beside it and inside it.

“Because, we must check out a squad car, but this being my car, and frankly, nowhere near standard for any police vehicle means that we can blend in a bit, you are still in uniform, but least if there is anything in the area we can spot it before we are spotted, all the better for us.”

“That is all well and good, but WHY did we have to take this car? We could have taken mine.” He complained.

She gritted her teeth “Maybe I just like driving.” She said, hoping he would just shut up. His gravely nasal voice was beginning to get on her nerves. Much more of this and she would lose her patients for this search and they hadn’t even started it!

Thankfully, before he could think of more replies to her statement she pulled up to the little Quick Save Mart his brother worked at. It was part of a strip mall set up. One side had a BBQ place, some random teriyaki place, Game Stop and a hair salon. The building went around in a sort of L shape that would leave parking and access in back for deliveries and employees.

“Right, do you want me to go in and ask around or go check out in back?”

He thought a moment “I will go check around back, as I look like an officer, people will not think it too strange for me to be poking about. You question inside.” And with that he got out of the car with surprising grace, closing the door. She reached over, hitting the lock and got out of her side, pocketing the keys.

“I’m on channel 2; if you spot anything let me know, otherwise we can meet back here.” She told him.

He gave a curt nod and stalked off.

She had a moment wondering how a skeleton managed to look both graceful and dangerous while also filling out those pants so well.

Magic, likely. She shook her head amused that she had been admiring a rather annoying skeleton’s ass before heading off into the grocery.

She wandered over to customer service and waited in the small line of harried moms, bored looking men, and little old ladies buying stamps, lotto tickets, and money orders.

When she got up she flashed her badge. “I’m just checking up on an employee, one called,” she double checked her notes, “Sans Red Font?”

“Oh Sans? Yeah the boss is pissed at him for ditching last night,” the slightly chubby woman behind the counter looked surprised. “Is he ok? I mean he still owes me 20 bucks.”

Helen snorted, but shrugged. “Think I can talk to your boss?”

“Oh sure, Dave is in back, I’ll get him.” She hurried through a set of doors behind her.

The man that came out from the back was, well, Helen had never seen anyone who was so classically the ‘manager’ than this guy. Pot belly hanging over the pencil waist and chicken legs, white button up with short sleeves tucked into jeans with a belt and tacky, shiny cowboy boots. Receding hairline and thick rimmed glasses over a pock marked nose, and the ruddy scruffy cheeks of a guy trying to grow facial hair over the lack on top of his head; or maybe gravity was just dragging it down towards his neck and likely abundance of chest hair?

He would likely be smoking if it wasn’t illegal inside buildings these days.

She glanced at his name tag, Dave Smith. “Mr. Smith? I’m Detective Helen Silva, of the MEPD. I’m currently here to ask a few questions about an employee of yours who has gone missing. I was hoping you could take a few moments to answer some questions for me.”

The man looked a bit startled, frowning “Come back to my office.” He said, his voice grating a bit like a long-time smoker and she followed him back. The office was a small room, with cheap desk and chairs, currently littered with paperwork, enough of it was shoved to the side on the desk to allow for the laptop and coffee cup. She had a moment of amusement when the cup had the number 1 on it crossed out and a hand-written letter put in so it read ‘world’s number 2 boss’.

He paused to move a box off a chair and pull it over for her to sit. “The roof over the filing room sprung a leak and so all the files had to be moved into here until we can get it fixed.” He said and sat down, looking irritated. “So, just who you want to know about?”

“Sans Red Font” she started.

“That asshole? The little fuck didn’t show and he knew we are down two guys, got hit with a surprise truck last night and I had to be called in to help unload it since he couldn’t be bother to even call out.”

OK, well that was a vehement response, “Yes, apparently he went missing sometime yesterday and we are just trying to figure out who was the last to see him.” She said.

“What?” Dave went still, shocked.

Helen couldn’t quite figure out how to read this guy and she was usually pretty good at getting a bead on how a person felt about someone. Right now, the guy was going hot and cold. Did he or did he not like the missing person?

“Right, how is Mr. Font as an employee?” she tried again.

“Little shit is irritating, and lazy, but... well,” he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck “Dependable, usually. Despite being a dark humored little asshole, most the employees like him. He has no problem covering a shift for someone if he’s needed and doesn’t ever fuck up the inventory.”

So, it seemed even Sans himself was a bit of a mixed bag to get such an assorted response. “Was he scheduled the night before he didn’t show?” she asked.

“Huh? Well yeah, he keeps a pretty regular schedule, I find it works better to get everyone on regular shifts, lets them know when they got time off and I get fewer call outs.” He said with a shrug.

Helen barely kept her face still huh, a semi decent boss oddly. Seemed not only Sans was a mixed bag but his boss as well.

“Was he acting oddly or off prior to his disappearance?” 

“Not far as I know? Likely those that work with him would know better if he was acting off, I’m not usually here while he’s working. Maybe the first hour, but after thatm, yeah, it’s just the night crew getting the shelves stocked and inventory done. You can always spot when he’s been filling out the inventory sheets, he writes like a computer font.” He said with a snort.

“May I get a sample of his inventory sheets?” she asked and the man rooted about before pulling up one and turning to run a copy off on the copy machine behind himself. He handed it over and she looked it over, it looked like each entry was written in near perfect comic sans, that was interesting really.

“This is from the night he worked last.” He said, and it was dated correctly.

“What is your relationship with Sans?” She asked him as she made a few notes to go along with the sample, she could very likely get a comparison sample from Officer Font.

He shrugged, “Eh, he’s a decent employee and keeps to himself. Likes to leave a few pranks around here and there, but usually doesn’t cause trouble, nor does he call out for stupid reasons.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “he’s a hard guy to get to know but works well, even if he’d rather fall to sleep if he could get away with it.”

“Do you like him?”

“Well as anyone else who does their job right.” He shrugged.

“How was he that night? Nervous? Acting Oddly in any way?”

“I wouldn’t really know, I wasn’t on shift at all that night.” He admitted. “I didn’t show up until after he had left for the morning.”

“So, you know anyone else who may know him well?”

“Know him, yeah, well? Eh, I don’t think anyone knows him well. He keeps to himself for the most part. Always telling dumb ass jokes but not talking much about himself. But,” he dug about to find a couple addresses and numbers, noting them down. “Leandra Willoughby and Bobby Patel.” He said handing them over. “While he’s on the job he hangs out with these two the most.”

She accepted the contact information for the other two, “Thank you, this will be helpful.”

Dave sighed, “The guy can be a little creep, but, he is one of my better employees and well, I hope he’s found.”

“We’ll do our best.” She promised him. Standing up she shook the man’s hand “I’ll contact you if I have any other questions,” she scribbled a note down onto a blank page of her notebook, “And my personal contact information if you remember anything.” She said and handed that over.

He gave a nod, filing it along a little container with other similar bits of information. “I will do that.”

She said her good byes and left, heading out to the front. She was going to have to contact the two people and find out when she can talk to them, soon, hopefully, but there were no guarantees. Sadly, even with limited time this was going to remain a waiting game. One where she had to hope that she got the information she needed before they stopped looking for a person and were just looking for remains.

Out front she found Officer Font waiting by her car, leaning back against it, his arms crossed over his chest and legs at the ankles. He spotted her. “Took you long enough” he said.

“I have a couple leads I can call and see if we can talk to, past that, far as I can tell nothing weird leading up to his disappearance. We’ll see what we get when I call these people.”

“I found my brother’s bike. It’s still back there, so if he left, it wasn’t by his own choice.” He added.

She frowned “We still can’t say that, anyway, do you have anything he’s hand written? I want to do a comparison to a list his boss gave me that he supposedly wrote up.”

“Well yes, I can find something. He does enough writing all over the place at home.” He nodded and she opened her trunk pulling out a tool box and a pair of gloves.

“Right, let me check out the scene,” she said, she wasn’t no forensics, but she could do a couple basic check arounds before they tried to get someone from forensics over on the case.

The more she herself could do at the moment, the faster it would go, as there was already a lot of muddling of the possible crime scene and forensics was just as likely to drag their feet even more than usual.

Yet again, she so wished this could be like a tv show with all the laser finger print finders and hour long waits for information. Over the days, weeks, or months that it usually took to get anything remotely useful back.

But Helen had a decent eye and a couple good camera shots could give her a few ideas.

She went around back. Officer Font showed her to the old moped that belonged to his brother, she checked it out and debated if she should bother wasting powder dusting for prints. She walked instead to the employee entrance and started walking towards the bike, mentally counting off steps and looking for signs of anything.

She stopped at tire marks, they could have just been from some asshat pulling stunts, but it was in the path from the door to the bike. The tracks where wide set and the tires old with as much rubber as they left on the ground after peeling out.

She knelt next to them, thoughtful. Then took a photo. As well as a few other wider shots of the area, to let her look them over later and get a feel for it. How many exits and entrance areas, the seclusion, things to consider.

But it was looking rather ominous.

 

Beta’ed by 206Lazybones (thanks so much sweetie! They’re helping me until they are tired of my missed words, irregular capitalizations and forgetting commas. If there are any remaining mistakes, they are likely more on me.)

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interviews and painting pictures of Magic and Monsters in this world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so I had meant for this to go up awhile ago, since I have the next chapter nearly done as well. But life and possible Betas schedules not lining up with mine, so sadly this is more or less not betaed for now, perhaps it will be replaced in the future but for now, I will bother everyone with my many grammatical errors.   
> I have a few more works I hope to get updates done on soon, but it will take a little time as I am currently both moving AND going in for surgery this upcoming June. weeeee /sarcasm

Future storm chapter 2

Helen brushed her teeth and checked her hair, the tight braids were, by this point, a mess, so she pulled it out and with enough stay in conditioner got the dark mass of frizzy, kinky curls to behave into something vaguely more relaxed. She didn’t have time to mess with it more, so she would have to look a bit more natural and maybe get the hairdresser at the salon to give her some braids over the weekend.

If only she got her dad’s hair over her mom’s. Helen sighed and found a clean shirt to put on. Helen had to do laundry, she was running out of clothing again, meaning she was stuck to the pants that while they fit her hips, left the huge gap in the back because her waist was narrower than most fashion designers of women’s garments seemed to think women should be shaped like. Exiting her bathroom, she went to the kitchen drawn by the smell of ambrosia. The current renter of her spare bedroom was a college girl. One of the science types, sweet kid, and while she couldn’t cook she could manage toast, eggs, and the best coffee this side of the Rio Grande.

Helen helped herself to a bit of food and a large thermos of coffee, grabbing up her keys and wallet to stuff into her jacket pocket as she headed for the door; checking her cellphone for any missed messages while she was in the bathroom.

“I was thinking of bringing in Chinese from the place down the street for dinner tonight, think you’ll be around?” Rebecca, the renter, asked as Helen opened the front door.

“Eh, chica, I’m likely going to be overtime if those interviews come through, so don’t worry about me.” She said, “I’ll just grab something on the way home, besides don’t you have that study group thing?”

“The project was finished a while ago.” Rebecca responded, “We’re just waiting to see if the professor liked it or will find a way to fail us all. Have a good day at work.” She poured her own cup of coffee.

Helen let out a gusty sigh that cracked up her roommate before she closed the door and went to her car.

It was early, but then if she wanted to catch those interviews and finish paperwork she was going to have to make some sacrifices. In her car she dialed up the numbers she was given by Sans’ boss and hoped they answered. These where the overnights that worked with Sans right? So hopefully she would get them.

The first was the voice of the young woman, cheerful with a vaguely southern drawl to her words.

“Hello, this is Helen Silva, and I am with the MEPD, just calling to ask a few questions about your fellow employee. Sans Red Font.” gods, that sounded so wrong all together, like someone did a comic sans font and highlighted it red. Made for a funny mental image though.

“Sans? Is he alright? He hasn’t been to work!” the girl sounded instantly worried, which felt honest, least it seemed someone liked Sans at his work place.

“We are currently trying to find him; would you be willing to meet me today for a few questions?”

“Would I have to come down to the station?” the girl asked.

Helen chuckled, “Only if it would make you more comfortable, otherwise I can come and see you.” She said.

“Oh, good, getting out is difficult since I have to take the bus.”

Helen nodded, she knew that pain. When her little car was in the shop having to take public was always a hassle. So, Helen took down the girl’s information and best time to drop by. She called the other young man. Bobby sounded a little less interested, but willing to talk. She wasn’t sure if his reaction was just exhaustion or lack of care in anything in general. Well she would have to see how he responded when she talked to him later.

Leandra wanted to see her as soon as possible; Helen would make a stop at the station before heading out again, and she would stop to see the young man on her way home this evening. Hopefully Bobby could muster a little more enthusiasm than he had on the phone.

She came into the station and was stopped on her way to her desk by the disgruntled looking Officer Font.

She looked up at him, utterly unimpressed with his attempts at being threatening.

“What? I must get to my desk, then I’m taking the evidence I have down to forensics and see if I can bribe one of the guys down there to take a look at it. After that I have an interview with one of your brother’s fellow employees. So, you know, unless you want to actually say something, move out of the way tall, dark, and Batman.” She said.

He blinked at her, startled by the blunt way she spoke to him. (Or maybe it was because she called him Batman) She heard a slight snicker that sounded like it was the skeletal janitor. A brief glance over her shoulder when Officer Font’s eyes shot that way proved it was indeed the custodial worker. He was leaning on his mop and just watching with a mildly amused fashion.

Officer Font growled and with a chuckle the other moved on and Helen stole that moment to slip around the officer to get to her desk. He turned startled at how fast she pulled that and followed her.

She retrieved the items she wanted and turned around.

He was right there. Again.

Helen gave a gusty sigh “What do you want?”

“I want to come along.” He stated.

“Well, long as you give me least three feet of space, sure.” She told him, slipping past him again and heading off. She wanted to get as far as she could, before anyone noticed she wasn’t ‘officially’ assigned to this case.

If anything, she was banking on that because the Sargent didn’t care for monsters he wouldn’t notice her working on a monster case for at least a day or two.

But that meant she had a terribly short window to get herself established as the detective on this case. Even then, the Sargent could decide to give it to someone else. Which, well, being a monster case meant that anyone else would be back to the issue Officer Font had started with. They would do it by the book, sure, but would take their time and the window to possibly rescue the monster was growing smaller and smaller.

She herself was mostly sure it was likely too late. But she would keep the hope if anything just for her fellow Officer.

She could feel the other walking behind her, a tower of bones in a uniform. She went down to the forensics labs. There were a few there, looking over paperwork, studying various bits of evidence. A couple looking like they likely slept in their clothing and where running on fumes from pulling  all-nighters.

One fellow looked up as she and Officer Font entered.

“Anyone currently free? Or at least willing to take a bribe of coffee and pastry?” she offered.

The fellow grinned “I’d love it, but I already have a stack, you can try Tammy” and he indicated a desk off in the corner.

The first thing that Helen took note of was that the molding along the floor had a ledge that was wide enough for one to balance a soda can on.

She knew this because it appeared that the resident of the desk had done just that, with what have been near a hundred empty cans of various types of Monster Energy Drinks, and Mt Dew. All arranged carefully to form interesting color gradient and geometric patterns.

She glanced back at Officer Font who looked both disgusted and rather impressed at the same time.

Yeah, her too.

The half-buried desk plaque read “David V. Tam” who seemed to be called Tammy by at least the guy who directed her here.

Said Tammy was a small man in an Ozzy Osborn band t-shirt, Whiney the Pooh pj bottoms and the most interesting pair of incredibly old purple reflective canvas sneakers. He’d tossed a lab coat over the top of this odd ensemble and had a pair of small square frames on his nose, his hair a bit of a spikey mess. Not a purposeful set up, just that he seemed to do the ‘roll out of bed and maybe halfheartedly run fingers through hair’ kind of hair styling.

Give this guy a lightning bolt scar and he could be a dead ringer for the book illustrations of Harry Potter.

“Can I help you?” he asked looking them over. He seemed more curious about the walking skeleton.

She held out the case file she had and the evidence she already assembled. “I was wondering if you might be willing to take on this case for me, we have a missing person and a very small window to hopefully find him in.”

Tammy took the file and started looking through it, glancing at the photos and chewing absently on his bottom lip.

“I was thinking if you would like, possibly a case of … code red?” she offered. Looking and doing a mental count.

“If I can get a case of the Black Label.” He countered. “And a box of donuts”

“Deal, hell I’ll give you a case a week for the next couple months if you can help me get this solved.”

“I’ll provide the donuts” Helen was half startled when Officer Font threw in that half of the deal. She looked back at him and he shrugged “I know the owner of the best place in town, and it is my brother. I did say I wish to help Detective.”

She gave him a grateful grin, as her personal pocketbook would be thankful for the aid and… did he just blush? _How_ did bones blush? That required like, blood and shit, right? Likely the same answer as everything else involving weirdness with monsters, magic, which both answered and didn’t answer anything.

Tammy thought about it and nodded “Great, I’ll start on this today, if you can get me the promised goods by tomorrow I’ll keep working.” He started making notes off the pictures right off, quickly engrossed and utterly ignoring the others, with one quick question “Where were these taken?” he indicated the tire track marks.

“The Quick and Save down past Main.” Helen responded.

 “I may go check it out then. Anything else there I should look at?”

“There is a small moped, green with black trim, it belonged to our missing person”

Tammy nodded and jotted a note and then seeing as he was engrossed in his work now, Helen and Officer Font made their way out of the forensics. A couple guys having overheard the conversation saying they might be interested in a few of those donuts for possible future help. She grinned, well if she could find out about where this ‘best place in town’ was, perhaps a few ahead of time bribes of coffee and donuts would help sweeten the parts of the force she needed to possibly get herself out from behind her mountain of paperwork and doing some of the job she actually signed on for.

 At the top of the stair she turned towards Officer Font “So I’m heading out to interview one of his co-workers, and after lunch I will be getting the other” she told him.

He nodded “Let’s take my car, its more comfortable.”

She blinked at him “Don’t you have patrols or something?” she asked him.

He shrugged “With my brother missing, no one is currently expecting me to go out and give tickets, besides, I’m already ahead of quota and this I think is a bit more important. Not just because Sans is my brother, but because this is a missing person’s case and if it had been anybody else except a Fell Clan Monster, everyone would be on this.”

She sighed, “Adults in general don’t get the buzz a missing child would have.” Helen added “but yeah, being a monster and fell doesn’t help either. Too many assholes who don’t really care about the heart of law these days.”

“I signed on to serve and protect.” He said, his voice low, gravelly, and dangerous, “not to be a bully and make money for the city with parking violations. Now, let’s go find my useless idiot of a brother who got himself kidnapped.” He turned on his heel and with crisp sharp steps headed for the exit.

Helen grabbed up her purse and chased after him, having a moment to realize; until that moment, she had not actually heard him at all.  He had been hardly more than the huge silent shadow that followed her. He got attention because Monster. Those glowing red eyes and sharp white dentition was the stuff of children’s nightmares.

But, unless he was making himself known, it was hard to remember he was even there.

Fuck, Helen decided, that was just terrifying.

 

\--00—

Leandra lived with her two moms, she had a small place that was put up behind the main house next to a rather impressive orchard and vegetable garden and when Helen knocked the curly haired middle-aged woman who answered was a little weary at first, Helen found surprisingly not because of Officer Font, well, not for the reason one would expect.

Only because they were officers at her doorway not because one was a monster.

Seemed one of the Muffets lived down the road from her and she spent quite a bit of time taking little spiders home rather than terrifying her arachnophobe of a spouse.

“Leandra’s in the shower” she told them leading them inside, “her’s is busted at the moment and we haven’t gotten a plumber in, so come in, have a seat and she should be down shortly” the woman said limping a bit as she walked with a cane towards the kitchen.

It was a uniquely interesting house. Artwork of different types hung on the walls, the house was in a square formation with an open inner court yard, one with nearly a dozen cats and one incredibly round sausage of a white dog, lounging about the lawn furniture.

Officer Font narrowed his eyes at the dog “That must be one of the annoying Dogs” he said.

“Annoying dogs?”

He sighed “well ours wasn’t so annoying, he worked sometimes as my runner, but it’s the general term most the undergrounds called them. None of us are fully sure if they are really Dogs, or one of the Dog Monsters.”

“Aw, we’ll have to see if he’s here of his own volition then”

Officer Font snorted, “Oh he is. If it’s one of them, then you can’t ever contain them. It’s what made my clan’s so useful as a runner. But in general, if you give most the dog monsters attention and treats they will just decide to stick around.”

Helen covered her smiled a bit, well, sounded like a regular dog there.

“Hey, Toby!” the woman called out to the dog “would you mind letting Leandra know she has company?” the dog got up and barked before running off to the other side of the house.

“He answered an ad for someone to help me out.” She told them. “I need someone around to get help if I fall or something, heh...” she tapped her cane “I have a bad habit of doing more than I should.”

Helen nodded, it was like the woman could read her mind. “So, his name is Toby?”

She shrugged “Far as I can tell, I mean he doesn’t speak, but we manage to make ourselves understood well enough.”

She indicated them to sit at the table before rustling about the rather nice open kitchen and returning with lemonade and sandwiches “I’ll leave it to you guys to make sure my girl eats, she has a bad habit of just eating chips and passing out for most the day.”

Helen grinned taking a glass of the lemonade and sipping, pausing at the rather interesting flavor. The woman also got a little jar that she set down next to Officer Font who looked at it surprised.

“Oh, um, thanks”

She just smiled “It’s alright, I know many monsters have issues with fully human food, Muffy comes over enough she leaves a little stash of powder here to put in her tea. She likely wouldn’t mind you using a couple spoonful” and she left them.

Helen was still trying to figure out the lemonade, it was lemon... but there was an, apply flavor and... tea? It was rather good, sweet, tart and a little sour.

She watched the skeleton monster next to her put a couple dollops of the fine glittery looking powder into the drink before he took his own sip.

“What is that?” she asked him.

“Magic powder, it helps monsters like me process certain human foods we would have a harder time with. Monster food isn’t made like human food, it is not fully organic the same way. For ones like myself,” he held out a hand and pulled down the glove he wore as part of his uniform so she could see the intricately half fused plates of bone that made up his form. Almost as if the bone took the place of tendons and muscle. It wasn’t a human skeleton in the least, but she could see a glow of reddish magic between each joint, like the dying light of a glow stick.

“Magic holds me together, so while I can process human food it is uncomfortable and well, if I’m not careful I could forget it’s in me and end up with it going right through me.” He admitted. “But with magic powder things like drinks I can absorb like monster food.”

“Huh, well its cool then she seems to have made friends with a monster.”

“Convenient” he shrugged sipping the drink, he seemed to be as confused by it at first before seemingly deciding he liked it.

By the time Leandra showed up he had finished half of his and Helen had polished off her own drink plus a couple of the sandwiches on the plate in the middle of the table. They were rolled and filled with things like peanut butter, Nutella and jelly.

The girl was freshly showered, her hair still damp, she sat and nabbed a couple of the sandwich rolls. “Heh, sorry, my mom tends to feed everyone.”

“We don’t mind, police tend to run on their stomachs” Helen said with amusement. “Do you mind if we ask our questions here or would you rather go elsewhere?”

“Here is fine, my Mom will make sure nothing leaves this house.” She said, “if she hears anything”

“Well it shouldn’t be an issue really, mostly we just need to know a little bit about your relationship with Mr. Font and the last time you saw him.”

“Sans is great, he’s pretty funny. A darker sense of humor, but well Mom sends me off with a whole battalion of jokes to tell him. She doesn’t look it but she’s got a pretty dark sense of humor too.” She seemed honest in her talking about the skeleton. “I mean, he works pretty hard and likes to make it look like he’s not working at all. I think it’s just to annoy the other guys mostly. Other than me and Bobby, everyone else don’t seem to understand him at all. I mean, our Boss might, but it’s hard to say when he’s chewing him out for napping.”

The girl spoke fondly of the skeleton. There was a worried edge to it. “So, aside from your boss, yourself and Bobby, does he have any other friends that you know of?”

“Grilby, the Fell one down off Mountain Road and 4th. I don’t know what other name he has taken on,” she said with a shrug “Sans only ever calls him Grilby and I’ve never been there, too far to go and while Sans might be cool with using one of his short cuts to get somewhere, he’s left me stranded a time or two and getting back home from say the middle of the Lust clan district is rather annoying.” She grumbled, “but if he has any other friends, he hasn’t talked about them. At least, not to me. I mean, he talks to my Mom, he seemed amused how she won’t put up with his bullshit.” She shook her head “that and I think he just likes coming over for free food and someone to trade jokes with.”

“Has he been by recently?”

She shook her head “last time he was over was I think, end of the month? He came over to join us for a game night, stayed for a couple board games then left fairly early. Said he was tired.”

Helen made a few notes. “Thank you.” She thought a few moments before asking “do you know of anyone he doesn’t get along with?”

“Greg, he is one of the other overnight guys. Overall unless it’s me and Bobby he doesn’t really talk to anyone much. But Greg is a monster hater, he came onto the night shift a couple months ago and keeps trying to egg Sans into a fight, it’s pretty pathetic really. The guy would likely end up nailed to a wall before he got close enough to make his first punch” she sounded pretty confident about this “he just wants to try and get Sans fired because he doesn’t like monsters.” The girl paused “Do you think he would have done something underhanded? I mean he wasn’t on shift the other night when Sans went missing…”

Helen wrote the guy’s name down “I will check with him, do you have a last name for him?” she made a note Greg Pencer, she would look him up and see if possibly he might talk. She wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions either way, but a monster hate crime was a possibility.

She could hear the creaking of Officer Font’s finger bones next to her as he fought not to speak while Helen was doing her interview. She glanced at him “Do you have any questions?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

“So how frequently did Greg and Sans argue?” Helen asked the girl.

Leandra thought a moment “Just about every time Greg was on shift. Greg would find something to go after Sans about. Waste of everyone’s time really” she shook her head and munched a bit on another sandwich roll “Sans usually ignored him, but sometimes they would get vocal until Sans just walked around a corner and” she made a poof motion with her fingers “he’d just leave and go take a break or a short walk somewhere to cool his skull a bit. Sans said that the guy’s Soul felt like sticky pitch that smelled bad.”

Helen tilted her head and looked at Officer Font.

He cleared his throat “It’s a... skill, my brother has. To judge a person’s Soul, it was used underground as a way of making a judgement on monsters who had committed crimes, how far... gone where they, if they could be saved.” He seemed almost, to wilt.

Leandra nodded “yeah, he said it was part of his old job, that he really didn’t like it much but sometimes he just look a person and couldn’t help but judge them. He said it was part of why he decided to give me and Bobby a chance, we had good souls.”

“Right” she said and figured she was definitely talking to Officer Font later about this skill, possibly find out if it was one that other Sanses might share, and if so possibly finding another one willing to talk to her about it.

She didn’t think it would affect the case, but her own curiosity was piqued. “Being that your mother knows him, do you think she would be willing to talk to us?”

Leandra nodded “Likely, just let me go get her,” and she got up heading off.

“Think you can explain this soul judging thing to me later?” she asked the skeleton officer beside her.

He gave a shrug “For the most part, it, well its more connected to being a Monster, it’s not a skill everyone has but some have developed it. I can see to a certain extent but the only thing I could judge is how much LOVE a person might have. My brother could tell more; connections, friendships, loves, all the strings that connect a person to another.”

“Love?” the way he said it, well it sounded familiar, but she wasn’t sure.

“Levels of Violence” he said, “How many times have they caused harm, or death, to another living being and how likely are they to do it again.”

She was given a pause at that, thinking of how useful that kind of skill could be for an officer, or a lawyer, judge. But she could also see how something like that could be misread as well, a soldier was someone trained to kill and will do so, especially given orders to. Another Officer could also have likely high levels of violence if it had to do with body counts. Someone could misread the ability to commit violence with the sort of need or want to bring harm to a person.

About then Leandra returned with her Mother and the little white dog who was trotting along with the older woman. She sat down cross from them and Toby plopped at her feet. She leaned over to give him a scratch behind the ears which the dog accepted with a lolling tongue and tail wag.

“So, Leandra says you want to ask me a few questions?” she asked.

“Can I get your name for the record first?” Helen asked her.

“Lucy Lawson.”

“Right, so, how close are you to Mr Sans Red Font?”

“I suggest you just call him Sans, he really dislikes being called Red or Mr. One is a name shoved on him without his permission the other made him feel old.” She said cheerfully.

Helen grinned a little as next to her Officer Font snorted. “So, how was your relationship with him?”

“Well enough I should think, he would drop by now and then, often with Leandra. Found out we shared a similar taste in jokes and mustard, dropped by just to share a few new ones he’d heard. We invited him to dinner a few times, game night, he seldom stayed long. I think he was afraid of feeling he might overstay his welcome, as if he might spoil something.” She sighed “but then seeing him feels a lot like seeing myself from a few years ago.”

“How so?”

“I recognize the signs of PTSD well enough and the times he’s talked about his underground, he has rather good reasons to feel a bit anxious.”

Next to Helen she felt her fellow officer go stiff, well seemed the woman hit a nerve.

She made another couple notes, thinking about what to ask, so far seemed they knew nothing about his disappearance, but she had a fairly clear image of just who Sans was.

Intelligent, not easily fooled, fast, had some magic that seems to let him travel ‘short cuts’ and see into a person’s very being.

Overall, he didn’t seem to be a person who would be easy to kidnap.

Yeah, she really didn’t like the implications of what that would likely mean. Hopefully… the forensics guy didn’t find any dust remnants at the scene.

 

0.0.0

End Notes: for the curious, the beverage served is a mix of a few different things.

I will mix lemonade (and no, not soda for my lovely overseas readers. This is lemon juice with water and sugar.) with Cider (or apple juice concentrate) and then soak a bag of mint tea. It comes out with an interesting tangy flavor that almost tastes alcoholic. It’s pretty tasty on a summer day!


End file.
